I Just Really Hate You
by Emily Snow21
Summary: Kory Anders is irritated by Victor Stone's and Garfield Logan's chatter, irked by Rachel Roth's demeanour. But she hates Dick Grayson with an absolute passion and always believed they never could be friends. How wrong she was. Slight Kory/Dick, Read


**A/N: Wait, whaaat? is what you're probably thinking. Kory Anders hating the four people she's supposed to be friends with? Yep. That is the OOC part to Kory in this story. Enjoy! I'll remind you later, but please review! **

* * *

Kory Anders was a lovely person.

Full of life, exuberant and almost always with a smile.

Almost.

You see, just because she was kind, welcoming and thoughtful enough to bake a grand ol' cake for the new European History teacher, it didn't mean she loved _everyone_.

For starters, she despised bullies by default. Thieves, whether petty as they tried to catch a crumb from her cake or major when they stole the school's entire collection of Apple Computer last year. She couldn't tolerate hypocrites, rude people and Quarantine Officers (especially when they take your favourite Tamaranian flower under suspicion of foreign disease that you were so eager to plant once you got back from visiting your home country three years ago).

"Nice cake you've got there," greeted Kory Ander's good friend, Kole Krystall. Immediately, Kory shied her cake away from Kole's reach.

"Whoa...whoa...beware of the cake, Kole! I don't want it to get damaged...is it alright? Yes, it is..." Kory was perilously carrying a marvellous cake under some cling film on a plate and was wary of anyone within five feet. Kole, her friend, was then instructed to stand at a small distance away from the cake so she wouldn't get too near the dessert.

"Kory, what's the cake for?" Kole asked. It was a bit odd to carry in an attractive cake to school and it was also unwise; students were eager for a home bake any time of day.

"It's for the new teacher, remember? History?" Kory prompted.

"Oh." Kole nodded. "But, you didn't have to bake him a cake."

"Well, I think I should give him some light in the awful day he's going to have. I mean, he'll probably have a difficult time teaching all those irritating boys in class." Kory scowled. "Like Dick Grayson, Victor Stone and Garfield Logan..." Kole rolled her eyes.

"C'mon Kory, why do you hate their guts?" Kole asked her as they walked up the steps to the doors of Jump City High. "They seem fine to me."

"Pfft, have you _talked_ to them?" Kory turned to her sharply, a look of disgust in her eyes. "Fortunately, I've never been paired up with them in a project. I'd die if that happened." Kole sighed, deciding that there was no point trying to make her see differently. They walked into the school while getting a couple of stares from surrounding people as they observed the cake. But some people liked to observe other things.

"Nice ass! Care to show it to me properly tonight?"

Kory couldn't _stand_ perverts.

"This early in the morning?" Kole rolled her eyes and Kory reacted similarly but didn't reply to the uncouth boy (or girl. Sometimes it was hard to tell).

(No. Kory does not hate transvestites).

The pair finally reached Kory's desired destination, her locker ("I need a place to put this cake") but it decided to be just about too small to fit the delicacy in. After a few fruitless attempts, Kole started suggesting alternatives.

"Maybe if you tilted it sideways-"

"No, you'll ruin the decoration!" Kory cried, frustrated of her ridiculous situation.

"Look, let's try again, but together this time."

Following Kole's suggestion, Kory and Kole both held a grip on the cake plate and with their combined strength attempted to push, push _push_ the cake into the locker. It seemed that the locker was succumbing to the breadth of the plate until-

"Hey, Little Ruby Red Riding Hood! Taking your cake to Grandma?"

Splat.

The distraction caused Kory to lose her grip on the plate and this took Kole by surprise, therefore her force accidentally slid the plate along the locker edge, thus losing the grip and landing top-first into the ground. Kory looked up and her eyes narrowed when she saw who had shouted. She knew that black gelled up hair anywhere (she wondered how many cans of hairspray that hair had been attacked with that morning?) That cocky grin was a trademark to his face. Kory loathed his presence.

She couldn't _stand _Dick Grayson.

"Haven't you got better things to do than annoy me?" murmured Kory as she reconciled the mess on the floor that had been her cake. Kole paused. She was only too aware what a conversation between Kory Anders and Dick Grayson would lead to.

"Like what?" Much to Kory's chagrin, Dick had heard her comment. "Suggest something, babe."

He leaned against a nearby locker that gave Kory the strange, aggressive urge to smash his skull through the locker door.

It wasn't very characteristic of her.

"Hmm, let me think. What is that thing you usually do every other day?" Kory sarcastically tapped her finger against her chin and raised her eyes up at the sky as if she was in deep thought. "Oh, I remember! Sleeping with random girls you never care to learn the name of!"

Kory hated players. Especially Dick Grayson, probably because she knew him personally (much to her displeasure).

"You always bring that up-"

"Maybe it needs to be brought up!" Kory retorted frosting and cake coating her hands as she turned red in the face. Kole felt embarrassed for her friend's irrational outburst but continued to help rebuild the cake. Dick raised his hands in front of him to say 'calm down'.

"No need to be so feisty, especially this early in the morning," he commented. Kory decided to ignore him and Kole thought, for a fleeting moment, that their 'conversation' was over and all those people who had come to observe their potential fight would go away and leave them alone.

"Hey, do you need some help?" Dick asked.

Kory raised her head to glare at him.

"I don't accept help from people I don't like." she declared.

"Why don't we be friends then?"

"Thanks... but no thanks. I have plenty of friends already."

It was true. People like Karen Beecher, Roy Harper, Garth Waters, Wally West, Jenn Hex, Toni Monetti and Jade Nguyen and of course, Kole Krystall were all her friends. Eight funny, perfectly adequate friends.

Dick Grayson was never getting anywhere _near_ that list.

When the playboy decided that annoying the gorgeous Kory Anders was becoming a bore, he turned to leave. But in his peripheral vision he noticed Kory had managed to get the pink frosting in her red hair, which he couldn't help but notice that the colours clashed horribly. Instinctively, he reached out to pick the blob of frosting out all the while mumbling about something being stuck in her hair.

Big mistake.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!"

Horrified by her screech, Dick Grayson flew backwards and slammed against the lockers. Kory stood up indignantly, hair flying everywhere and that pink blob of frosting still leaching onto her strands. Even more people turned to look now and now aware she had to do _something_ before Kory punched Dick in the stomach (it was very possible his intestines could fly out if she had done so), Kole grabbed Kory's arm and pulled her away from the vicinity of Dick.

"What the hell is your problem?" he shouted, angry at the fact she had scared him, even if it was only for a moment.

"Mind I ask the same question?! You made me drop my cake in the first place!" Kory shrieked.

"Kory, please... calm down..." Kole hissed desperately. "People are starting to look..."

That was an understatement.

It seemed half the school population had gathered the ideology that it would be fun to witness a Kory VS. Dick battle and even a teacher had come along to see what was going on. It was not going to be pretty.

"All I said was this harmless-"

"You just say things to annoy me, don't you? What have I ever done to you?" With shock, Kole noticed that tears were leaking out of Kory's eyes even though she quickly wiped them away with the ends of her sweater.

"What have I ever done to you?" Dick repeated, still up against the lockers in case Kory screamed at him again.

"_This_." she suddenly dropped to a whisper as she indicated the sweet, sticky mess that was residing on the floor. No way could she give the new European History teacher that now. "Just a waste of my time..."

Dick was silent. Much to Kole's and Kory's dismay, he had probably seen that Kory was crying and had decided not to say anything. Quickly, Kole rushed over to Kory's school bag as the latter began to walk away towards her next class. Students parted the way for her as she walked.

"Don't worry about it. Forget about him, he's just a prick like you said." Kole muttered to Kory as she followed her. Dick had heard every word.

* * *

Not only was Kory a nice person, but she was also very emotional.

She pretended not to hear the accusations of her being on PMS with Kole yelling at their peers to "go away", although, not as politely. Fortunately, the teacher who had come to spy had decided not to step in which Kole was thankful for as Kory was not being very talkative and explaining the situation would have been uncomfortable.

"You alright?" Kole asked, concerned. The answer was a quick little nod.

"I am fine... I was just... worked up. That's all." Kory explained, but she refused to say anything more on what just happened. Kole definitely didn't force her, as a reminder of Dick and Kory's short lived shouting match was something Kory certainly didn't need right now.

Kole's first class was not the same as Kory's so when the bell rang, signalling the official start of the school day, they bid each other goodbye with a promise to see each other at lunch.

With a few deep breaths to relax and collect her thoughts, Kory walked into Advanced Calculus.

Even though she not feeling so, she decided to put on the cheerful aura she usually had, as if she her cake hadn't slipped out of her hands half an hour before and collapsed onto the floor and she hadn't cried in front of everyone to see and hadn't just yelled irrationally at Dick Grayson, the person she absolutely hated.

Yep.

Just needed to forget all that.

With positive feelings in mind, she chose to sit beside Rachel Roth, the girl who was rumoured to be friendless. Kory could only think of a few people that deserved to be friendless, but she was sure Rachel Roth was not one of them.

"Hello," she beamed brightly at her. In response... well, she barely received a response. _Maybe_ Rachel Roth turned her head slightly to the left and raised her left eyebrow a couple of millimetres to acknowledge her presence, or _maybe_ she didn't. Kory decided it was probably the latter.

"Um... I'm Kory Anders," Kory continued, ignoring the fact that _she_ was ignored.

"I already know," Rachel said, mysteriously. Her voice was quite low for a girl's and had a rolling rasp. For some horrific, outlandish reason, Kory's first thoughts were 'Demon'. But that was crude and insane. Of course Rachel was not a demon; she wasn't evil.

At least, that's what Kory thought at first.

"Oh? You have heard about me then? Good things I hope?" Kory giggled. Rachel definitely raised an eyebrow then.

"I don't know if you would say they were good..." Rachel paused. "I heard you beat the living crap of Dick Grayson today because he ruined the cake you had baked for your boyfriend...?"

Kory deadpanned. She was _not_ in the mood for stupid rumours.

"I didn't beat him up at all..." Kory mumbled.

"Oh? So it was a complete lie then? Thought it was. You're too nice for that kind of thing." Usually, if someone had told Kory was "too nice", she would've accepted it as a compliment. But the way Rachel had uttered 'too nice' implied that it was a fault, to be too kind. It was for that reason Kory decided to tell her the truth.

"I yelled at him instead," she blurted out. "And the cake was for the new history teacher."

Rachel's eyes widened; her first show of expression.

"Your boyfriend is the new history teacher?"

"No!" Kory snapped, irritated at the misunderstanding. "I don't have a boyfriend. I had baked a cake for the new teacher because the students in my European History class are complete assholes and I wanted to give him one good thing in his day, but one of those complete assholes destroyed the cake, thus backing up my point that everyone in that class is a complete asshole."

Rachel opened her mouth for a moment. Perhaps she was going to comment on the lack of Kory's logical reasoning, or to make a quip about the lack of vocabulary Kory had, in the context of offensive words (thus backing up Rachel's point that Kory was too nice), but in the end, she decided to shut it. She wasn't really in the mood to have a debate of the level of Dick Grayson's asshole-y ness.

"I just can't believe him. I haven't done a single bad thing to him – not one – and he still thinks it's OK to make fun of me every day and irritate the hell out of me," Kory continued to rant about Dick Grayson. She didn't really mean to, it's just that when she got started she couldn't stop. All initial thoughts about not talking about what had happened half an hour ago flew out the window and did a couple of back flips as Kory simply could not stop talking about how much she hated Dick Grayson and the way he treated girls and his insane cockiness-

Rachel decided to drop the bombshell.

"Dick Grayson's my friend." she said after five minutes of Kory-talk. Kory halted her speech. Her head swivelled, so instead of looking around aimlessly it turned to stare at Rachel. So her preconceptions were right after all.

"I thought you didn't have any friends," Kory stated bluntly.

"Wow. Bit harsh," Rachel commented. "Is that why you came to talk to me? Because we have nothing in common."

"I was just trying to be nice,"

"You're not being very nice now. Saying all that stuff about Dick Grayson."

"That's because Dick Grayson is... a _dick!"_ Kory exclaimed and pulled her things away from their shared table to sit somewhere on her own.

'Kory _definitely_ needs to learn some new vocabulary' Rachel thought.

* * *

That Advanced Calculus lesson must have been the slowest Advanced Calculus lesson Kory had ever experienced. She usually enjoyed looking at numbers and figuring out algorithms ("Math is a universal language!") but all she could think of was how much she hated Dick Grayson and how she was never going to talk to Rachel Roth out of her free will again as there had to be something wrong with her if she could be friends with Dick.

Next class was Biology which Kory shared with Karen Beecher, one of her first and best friends. They conversed normally for ten minutes or so without the topic of Dick Grayson arising, but as Karen tried to find a soft spot on the hard lab seats, Kory let it loose.

"Rachel Roth is friends with Dick Grayson! Can you believe it? Of all people!"

"Oh my god! No way! That's ridiculous, they're nothing alike! Maybe Dick's just using her for sex!" Karen gasped.

Or, at least, that's what Kory _wanted_ her to say.

Instead, Karen raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows and shrugged.

"I don't really care," Karen actually said. She noticed the look on Kory's face that was akin to someone who just saw a horse do a couple of back flips off a trapeze. "Why do _you_ care?"

"... because Dick Grayson doesn't deserve any friends." Kory huffed.

"Girl, what the hell?!" Karen craned her neck to observe Kory's face, which Kory was hiding because she had turned red with embarrassment and didn't want Karen to see. "What have you got against him?"

"Didn't you hear what happened this morning?"

"Yeah. I heard the actual truth too, from Kole, rather than the bullshit was flying around," Karen said. "Some people were saying that you two were actually a couple but then you were breaking up with him because he cheated on you."

Kory pulled a face, uncanny with someone who had just stepped in a pile of poo.

"If _that_ had happened, I'll understand why you'd be getting so upset. But seriously? You just lost control of your damn cake while y'all were tryin' to shove in your locker and doesn't seem like it was Dick's fault at all."

Kory's mouth fell open, agape. This was the first time that Kory could recall, that Karen had disagreed with something Kory had said. And she was serious about it.

"It _is_ Dick's fault. He made a comment about my hair and it distracted me and my cake collapsed on the floor. It took me _ages_ to make it yesterday!" Kory wailed.

"About your _hair_?" Karen snorted. "At least it wasn't about your tits or something-"

She broke off. Kory stared at her, her facial expression changing from amusement to realisation. It was like she was having an epiphany.

"I understand everything now," Karen said softly.

"What? What do you understand?" Kory prompted eagerly. Karen's eyes flickered to something behind Kory and she made a quick shake of the head.

"Dick's friends." she mumbled. Without thinking, Kory turned around and spotted Victor Stone and Garfield Logan. Her stomach plummeted.

She wouldn't have cared about their presence had they just been walking to their table to sit down. Heck, it would've been better if they were just facing the other direction to talk someone else. But no.

They were staring at Kory and Karen.

They had heard every word.

"Can I help you?" Kory snapped, not sounding like she wanted to help either of them at all.

"What were you saying about our boy?" Victor said eyes ablaze. The green-haired boy next to him had an equally angry expression.

"None of your business," Kory said snootily and turned to face the front, with a vague hope that they'll stop pursuing her.

But what kind of friends would they be if they did that?

"Um, dudette, I think it is. Dick Grayson's our friend," Garfield said. Kory knew that only too well. She liked to think that was the reason they were so annoying during history class; all three of them sat together (and now, come to think of it, Rachel Roth sat nearby) and their main objective of the session was to annoy every being in the room as much as the possibly could, thus restricting everyone's learning.

Kory often said they were the reason their teacher had resigned.

"Kory didn't mean anything she said. She's just having a bad day," Karen lied hurriedly. Kory, a person who hated lying, spoke up indignantly that everything she said was true.

"Girl, I'm saving your sorry little ass. For once, can't you just _lie_?" Karen hissed. Offended, by Karen's words, Kory mumbled something vague about there being a misunderstanding.

"I hope so," Victor said, voice blank. "'Cos next time, we won't let you off so easy."

Kory said nothing and faced the front to listen to the teacher's instructions. Even though she was relieved to have escaped a very horrible moment, she felt a small niggling at the back of her mind that was similar to regret. For some reason, some part of her brain was saying that she'll have to avoid talking to Victor and Garfield for long time now because it would only become awkward... and it was upset about it. If only she hadn't said those things about Dick so vehemently... it's not like she meant them-

What? Of course she meant what she said. Kory hated Dick with a passion and that was that.

_You hate him with no valid reason._

"No... there are lots of reasons..." Kory murmured to herself as she buckled on her lab coat and snapped on her lab protection glasses. But while she was picking out a dead frog from the side and a dissection kit, no strong reason came to mind.

Well. Except one.

But she was never, ever going to tell _anyone_ about it. No way.

"You OK with cutting the frog?" Karen asked. Snapping out of her daze, Kory nodded. "You alright?"

"Yep. Fine," Kory lied. "Hey, what was that thing you said you understood earlier?"

"Huh?"

"You said 'I understand everything now'," Kory clarified.

"Oh, that." Karen smirked which intrigued Kory even more. "I'll tell you later. But you won't like it."

"I'll be fine, promise." Kory insisted.

"No. You'll say I'm wrong and misguided or whatever, but I know I'm right," Karen grinned. "Now, forget about it and let's start mutilating this smelly frog."

Despite the fact everyone was meant to be concentrating as piercing the skin of a frog without touching its organs was delicate business, Victor and Garfield didn't fail to continue talking.

"Dude, I am not touching that frog."

"Why? Stop being chicken."

"Dude, I'm a _vegetarian_."

"Then tell Teach you can't do this experiment."

"Dude, she'll think I'm a wimp."

"Does he really need to say 'dude' that many times?" Kory muttered as she prodded the frog heart with her scalpel.

"Shut it, Kory. They'll hear you." Karen hissed.

Kory indeed did shut it. Although, this grew progressively more difficult as Victor and Garfield continued to chatter with no sense of stopping. What made her angrier was that no one else seemed to care that they were the loudest voices in the room. Even the teacher seemed to have a deaf ear to them.

Fine. Kory was a nice person. But sometimes, she'll love to just be the exact opposite and not be chastised for it. Especially when it came to people as loud as Victor and Garfield, as irritating as Dick and as unfriendly as Rachel.

Her mind still hadn't found a reason why when she left the classroom.

* * *

Kory thought the worst parts of her day were over after Biology. After a public shouting match, awkward conversation with Rachel Roth and trying to keep her mouth zipped tight for just under an hour, it wasn't unwise to think so. Only so many negative things could occur in an ordinary day and Kory had believed her limit had been reached.

It wasn't an ordinary day.

She hadn't known what to expect when she walked into the European History class. Maybe a young looking teacher who's first job was at Jump City High (they'd probably would've loved her cake). Maybe an extremely old teacher who wasn't going to be with them much longer, despite being appointed as the new history teacher.

Kory definitely didn't expect a seating change, a British man with ugly teeth yelling at her to squeeze between – of all people – Dick Grayson and Rachel Roth, and the news that they'll only be focusing on British history from now on, starting with Henry VIII. Even though her whole body screamed 'NO!' her outward appearance was calm. Even when Dick's elbow accidentally brushed her arm and her heart suddenly beat faster, probably from high blood pressure because she was so pissed with him, she stayed cool. I'll just have to keep my head down, tuck my arms in and learn to write without hitting the half-demon next to me, Kory thought. She could deal with this.

She could.

She would.

But then the yellow-toothed geyser dropped a bombshell.

"'Cos I know you American teens won't take a new teacher seriously, I'm setting you all an assignment straight off." Mr. Mod – the ugly British man – ignored all the cries of woe from the American teens as he wrote the assignment on the board. Everyone had thought it was to be a 3000 words essay on something stupid, at worst. Kory would've been able to deal with that; she was great at essays.

But not this.

Without saying a word, she pushed back her chair and stood up. She strode right towards the exit, feeling the gaze of everyone's eyes against her back until she shut the door.

_Bang._

_Bang._

_Bang._

What is that you ask? Oh it's just Kory Anders banging her head against the wall because she is so fucking annoyed with her life.

"I... don't... deserve... this!" Kory screamed, each bang accentuating each word. She knew that the noise of her head colliding with the wall was travelling through the other side. Dick was probably thinking of how weird and insane she was for half-trying to commit suicide right outside the classroom. She wondered if Mr. Mod was going to notice a student was gone. Victor and Garfield were probably sniggering about her predicament with Dick and Rachel and were thinking of ways to-

"Kory, what in the world are you doing?"

Kory stopped, halfway through her collision course against the wall. She turned her neck and was met with a sharp, blinding pain in her forehead. She cried out. Through the tears that had formed in her eyes, she just managed to make out the short pink hair belonging to a petite figure. Kole.

"Kole, I just hate my life." Kory wailed. She sunk to the floor in utmost despair. She didn't even care how much she was overreacting; her life was just going down the drain. There must be some sort of conspiracy against her, how could she be so unlucky?

"You didn't answer my question," Kole said as she sat down next to her. Kory's forehead throbbed horribly, the obvious aftermath after beating your skull against the wall, and vaguely wondered if she should return to class.

"I was hitting my head against the wall, what did it look like?" Kory snapped. "Oh, I'm sorry Kole, I'm just in a really bad mood."

"Hey, it's alright. I can tell, it seems like your ditching class." Kole said.

"Not really. I'm meant to be in there," Kory indicated the nearby door leading into the European History class. "What are you doing out of lessons?"

"Free period," Kole shrugged. "I was heading for the restroom though, until I saw you."

"I shouldn't stop you, go on!"

"Kory!" Kole frowned. "I can't just leave you now. It looked like you were trying to kill yourself a minute ago."

"That bad, huh?" Kory half-grinned, but it disappeared as quickly as it came. "Oh Kole, it's just everything's wrong..."

"What's going on?"

"...OK, the thing is, I got a new assignment just now."

"Oh," Kole blinked. "You're great at essays though, you always get As-"

"But it's not an essay!" Kory cried. "Mr. Mod, my new history teacher, put us into groups to perform a play. He even assigned us the roles! He wrote it on the board and everything."

"I thought you liked acting."

"I do but..." Kory took a deep breath. "Not when I have to act as Dick Grayson's _wife!_"

* * *

At lunch, Kory explained the reasons of her misery to her friends over the lunch table. Afterwards, she waited with bated breath for the reactions from her friends.

"Bit anticlimactic if you ask me," Roy Harper commented as he swallowed a bite of his sandwich. Karen and Kole gave him a flat look.

"What? It is! It's just an _assignment_."

"With the four people she absolutely _despises_," clarified Jenn Hex who glared at Roy for his lack of empathy.

Kory moped over her soup bowl. She hadn't even returned to history because her forehead was hurting so much that Kole had escorted her to the school's nurse. She had somehow avoided answering the question of why her head felt like it was threatening to burst because she knew she would've let it all out, like she did with Karen in Biology. She left with an ice pack against her forehead and chose to wait in the cafeteria until all classes ended for lunch.

"It'll be OK, Kory," Garth Waters tried to sympathise. He was like the male version of Kory; gorgeous and kind. "Just try to detach yourself from your feelings about them, which will be even easier since you'll be acting."

Kory gave a small nod to show that she listened, but she didn't think Garth's advice was very helpful. How one earth was she meant to do that? One can't simply turn off their emotions. As the rest of her friends projected other advice, Kory swirled her spoon around in her tomato soup as her mind drifted to the memory of that morning when she shouted at Dick. The look on his face... she almost had felt sorry for him. One part of her brain was saying that he hadn't deserved to be shouted at, it was only some mild teasing he gave, while the other part was insisting that he most certainly deserved to be yelled at because he had made her drop her cake.

Then the kind part of her brain sweetly reminded her evil side that after what Mr. Mod had done to you today, he didn't even deserve that cake. Back and forth, back and forth, Kory's mind was like a shouting match in itself. And the nice side was winning...

"-and that's all you have to do!" Jade Nguyen was saying. When Kory saw Jade was looking at her, she realised she had been giving her some advice on how to deal with her assignment situation, but had listened to none of it.

"Um... I don't think that would work," Kory said, making up her reply and hoping it was the right one. It seemed so, when Toni Monetti and Wally West shouted 'I told you so' soon after. After glaring at her soup for the 100th time, she held up her spoon to eat it when someone tapped her on the shoulder.

It was Rachel Roth.

"Hey," she said, voice devoid of emotion. "I was wondering if you were free this lunchtime. Because Vic, Gar, Dick and I were thinking we should start working on the play now, since we only have two weeks to do it and you didn't come back to the lesson."

Kory was surprised. It seemed that Rachel had completely forgotten what had happened in Advanced Calculus, with her leaving their table in a childish huff. And... it was _nice_ that they were still willing to include her in the play as if she hadn't left European History with an unexplained reason.

"Uh... yeah. Sure," Kory nodded, dropping her spoon back in the bowl. Ignoring the strange looks from her friends, she got up from her seat and began to follow Rachel when she suddenly remembered something.

"I'll catch you up, OK?" Kory said to Rachel, who turned around briefly before walking on. She turned to Karen. "Can you _now_ tell me what you had understood in Biology?"

A fresh smile covered Karen's face.

"I'll text you about it later, promise. You'll hate me forever, though." Karen warned.

"I still want to know. And of course I won't hate you forever," Kory grinned before following Rachel.

Yeah. Since when did Kory hate anyone forever without good reason?

* * *

After a minute of awkward silence between them both, Kory decided to speak up. And apologise.

"Sorry about my... rant this morning in Advanced Calc. I was just stressed out," Kory said, suddenly wishing she hadn't said anything at all. But, much to her surprise _again_, Rachel gave her the smallest of all smiles. But it was still a smile. Even though she hadn't known her for very long at all, Kory felt like it was something she rarely did.

"It's OK. I understand. I get stressed out a lot too." Rachel said. "I meditate sometimes to keep myself calm."

Kory's eyes widened. Someone else did that too?!

"Really? Me too!" Kory exclaimed, almost too excitedly. In fact, she _was_ too excited. The mean part of her brain scolded her; wasn't she meant to hate this girl? She was unfriendly and sarcastic and was friends with Dick Grayson... but her nice side somehow managed to shut the other up.

"Oh?" Rachel looked amazed, her first show of emotion Kory had seen. "I thought I was the only one. It doesn't work for everyone."

"It works for me," Kory said. Maybe they did have something in common after all. But as they launched into a conversation about scented candles and their healing powers of the mind, Kory wondered if only one thing in common was enough to be friends with someone. In theory, it wasn't.

"We managed to grab an empty classroom," Rachel explained to Kory as they entered it. It was a pretty large, and Dick, Victor and Garfield were already seated around the middle table. Simultaneously, they turned their heads to look at Kory. She had expected their gazes to be full of malice and, well, hatred (since that's what she had felt for _them_ hitherto) but instead they were full of friendship. Was it because they were worried about her absence in history? A pleasant feeling warmed up in Kory's heart.

Wasn't she known for always regarding everyone as her friend, for giving everyone a friendly look as if she was deliriously pleased to see them? But yet, she had somehow had been reduced to hating four people, all because of one thing that had happened many years ago...

"Um, hi," Kory waved, only mildly awkwardly. It was hard to forget about what happened that morning. They obviously hadn't forgotten either; Dick was surely only pretending to be nice to her as he pulled out a chair for her in a very gentleman-like way. It made it hard to believe he was a playboy at all.

"Thanks," Kory said, but didn't look at him when she did. She was too embarrassed to. After Rachel had sat down, there was a moment of complete silence which Victor broke.

"Right, y'all!" Kory could bring herself to look at Victor, who was looking determined. "I realise none of y'all want to be doing this; I mean, I can you even imagine grass stain over here as the _Pope_? Mod has to be kidding me."

"Hey, dude! I can make a totally good Pope!" 'Grass Stain' argued. Kory found herself, much to her shock, giggling at their exchange. She thought 'grass stain' was an accurate nickname too, considering Garfield's hair was indeed green like grass and surely never was going to come out properly.

"Oh yeah? Show me." Victor challenged.

"Um..." Garfield went blank for a moment. "Got it... NO CONDOMS!"

Everyone fell silent for a few seconds, before everyone burst out laughing. Even Rachel could manage a grin, at least until she told Gar off for insulting Christianity. He insisted that he wasn't and Dick followed with a quip about something along the lines of Garfield having a lack of knowledge. It was then Kory realised these people had such chemistry, even though they were so different in every way.

She had completely misinterpreted their loudness in history class before; it was just friends being _friends_. Joking around, teasing each other. Something she valued highly; she always viewed friends as one of the most important things a person should have.

Wasn't having enemies the least important? Of course. So why was Kory trying to make them?

"Right, so Kory, you're supposed to be Catherine of Aragon or something... and Henry VIII-" Victor indicated Dick, -"is trying to divorce you. So you're going to have to act pretty pissed when you find out."

"I think I can manage that," Kory nodded.

"Aren't you're too nice for that?" Garfield asked her. For a split second, Kory's eyes flickered at Dick before focusing on Garfield.

"Everyone has an evil side," she shrugged.

That was an understatement.

"Rachel, you're meant to be Anne Boleyn. You're supposed to be in love with little Dickie over here," Victor indicated Dick again who looked fairly annoyed.

"Oh, joy," she said sarcastically. "I'm probably going to regret saying this, but won't I need some sort of medieval dress? I can't exactly be wearing jeans and a hoodie."

"Yeah... so would Kory too..." Victor murmured.

"DUDES!" Garfield cried out. "I know _exactly_ where to get out costumes from! And we don't have to pay anything!"

"Where?"

"The school theatre's costume room!" Gar declared before darting out of his seat towards aforementioned place. Victor followed in his wake, shouting about something along the lines of that they should probably ask to borrow them first, otherwise it would be considered as stealing.

Kory knew how much she hated stealing.

"I'll check they're not just leaving to go spy on the girls' locker room," Rachel rolled her eyes at this thought before exiting the classroom too, leaving Kory and Dick by themselves.

Had Kory been told she was to be sitting with Dick Grayson alone in a classroom yesterday, she would've done everything in her power to stay away from school, just so that wouldn't happen. It was to that extreme that her irrational hatred of Dick had gone to, and Kory was aware that it was going too far.

She was going to make amends, once and for all.

"Dick... about what happened this morning..." Kory braced herself for the worst. More teasing maybe, since they were alone and Dick didn't have to pretend to be nice to her anymore. Maybe even a repeat of their argument because Dick could've been still annoyed about what Kory had said.

It was neither of those.

"Why do you hate me so much?" Dick inquired. Kory finally turned to look at him. The first thing she noticed was his blue eyes... she hadn't realised what a lovely hue it was. A wonderful, cerulean blue, akin to the colour of the sky on a beautiful day. Before, she never really bothered focusing on any part of his face because she had the misconception that if she knew how he looked too well, she could never forget about him. Lies; she could never forget about him anyway.

Kory wondered for a fleeting moment that she should just ignore that Dick had asked her that excruciating question. Just pretend she hadn't heard him, and they would return to the same stone they were before; enemies. Hating each other. Not talking to each other. Only barely tolerating each other in lessons. It wasn't what Kory wanted in any way.

So she answered him.

"I didn't know before now," Kory began. "At first, I didn't really know why. The minute I saw you in middle school... I just felt these angry emotions inside of me, and thought it was me hating you. And I've never really thought _why_ I felt like that."

"Why?" Dick asked, his voice soft and soothing. Kory took in a deep breath before blowing all the air in her mouth out slowly, a steady exhalation. One of her mediating techniques she often used when controlling her jumpy emotions.

"It was years ago, but I still remember. You probably don't... but we used to go to the same Elementary school." Dick looked blank.

"We did?"

Kory nodded, thoroughly embarrassed.

"I was the girl with the high pigtails and odd taste in food," Kory clarified. When a look akin to comprehension crossed Dick's face, she continued. "Anyway, I was new to the US, because my family and I had just moved from Tamaran, my home country. So I didn't realise I was really weird for drinking mustard and stuff so no one really liked me."

As Dick listened, very avidly Kory noticed, she felt as if she might be giving away too much personal information. But Dick deserved to know. He deserved to know why she had never spoken a good word to him since 9th Grade.

"So I was friendless, a loner, until I met you. You didn't find me weird, or if you did, you didn't stop liking me. We always did everything together... go on the swings in the park to see who could go the highest, swapping lunch box snacks in private and you even gave me a whole box of mustard sachets for me to drink."

"I remember," Dick grinned, and Kory felt her stomach churn and her heart lift at the sight of his smile.

"You were my only, and therefore, best friend. I always spoke about you with my parents, and we always had play dates because of it... but then, for some reason, you stopped talking to me." Kory frowned, her memory was a little hazy, so it was harder to recollect the story. "You distanced yourself from me. One day, we hadn't talked at all and I cried when I got home because I thought we weren't friends anymore. And then... you were gone. I was so broken up about it. My first friend, since I never interacted with other kids on Tamaran, had stopped being my friend... for a child that was probably the worst thing I could conceive happening to me. I even asked the teacher about where you had gone and they said you'd moved house and weren't going to come to that Elementary school anymore..."

There was a clear pause in which Kory felt a huge weight leave her chest. It was like the memory had been weighing her down for so long, and it was finally expelled when she retold it.

"I still don't know why." she added after a minute. Dick didn't say anything. In fact, he was silent for so long Kory thought he had forgotten to reply.

"So you hate me because I stopped talking to you as a kid?" Dick finally spoke.

"I know, it's stupid-"

"It's not." Dick interrupted. Kory stared at him in disbelief. "I remember everything you just told me. I _knew_ I had recognised you from somewhere, I just couldn't place it. You look much more different now than you did before... you're much pr-" Dick broke off and blushed a little. Kory furrowed her eyebrows, wondering what he was going to say, when he continued.

"You were my best friend too. The thing is Kory, I didn't stop liking you or anything because I found you weird all of a sudden... it's just that things were going on at home... and I got upset about it." He looked away, his face hidden.

"Oh... were your parents divorcing?" Kory asked sympathetically. "That makes sense, of course you would act different-"

"No," Dick said, very firmly. "No. They died."

Kory's heart dropped like a stone.

He had to be kidding her. No way... no way could a child ever cope with that...

"... I never knew." was all Kory could manage to say.

"You weren't meant to. I went to an orphanage nearby so I could still go to the same Elementary school, but I didn't want to bring you into the troubles of my life so I just stopped talking to you. I was adopted pretty quickly afterwards, and that's why I moved."

That explained a lot. Why Victor and Garfield were so protective of their friend, why Dick could be a cocky prick at times, because no child could peel themselves away from their parents' death unscathed. Suddenly, Kory regretted every nasty thing she ever said to Dick because he had a great excuse for being a little unkind, whereas she had a stupid one about some kid friendship that was never supposed to last anyway.

"I'm sorry." Kory whispered.

"Don't be, it's not your fault they died. Anyway, it was a long time ago, I kind of get used to the emotional pain now-"

"Not that. I'm sorry that I was ever mean to you," Kory spoke even softer that time. God, were those tears pricking her eyes? If anyone had to be crying, it was Dick because it was _his_ parents who had died. Not Kory's, the bitch who hadn't even bothered to think for a second that her feelings were misguided towards him.

"I guess, I kind of morphed my feelings of being left behind and lost in Elementary school into anger and hate when I saw you. And they haven't changed since..." Kory sniffed, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. "Well, until now."

"Look, Kory, you don't have to be sorry for that, seriously. I'm not innocent in any way either," Dick said.

"Yes, I do!" Kory cried and without thinking, flung her arms around the boy she thought she was meant to despise forever, but now, all she wanted to do was hold him and say _sorry_.

Perhaps somewhat awkwardly, Dick enclosed his arms around Kory too, but sensing his discomfort, she pulled away. She offered him a small smile.

"So can we start again?" Kory asked, holding out a hand despite the fact they had just hugged rather intimately. "As friends."

Dick nodded, and shook her hand resolutely.

"So you definitely don't hate me anymore?" he asked playfully.

"Of course not! I've seen the error of my ways," Kory smiled even more broadly. At that point, it didn't seem too bad to be acting as Dick's wife after all. They'll probably get a lot of laughs out of it, especially with Garfield trying to be the Pope.

Kory's mobile buzzed and she retrieved it out of her bag to read her text. It was from Karen, explaining her epiphany in Biology.

_I realised why you hate Dick so much; you totally fancy him! I bet he fancies you too ;)_

As Dick handed her a tissue to dry up her wet eyes, Kory stole another glance into his deep blues again and realised maybe, just maybe, Karen could be onto something.

"I'm guessing all those rumours about you being a player were false, right?" Kory asked.

"Yep. Never thought you'd be someone to believe all that stuff. Was that one of the reasons you hated me before?"

"Maybe."

Dick grinned.

Yes. Perhaps his name had just been added to Kory's mental list of friends, but having a crush on Dick Grayson was becoming very plausible indeed.

**The End**

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**A/N: Tell me ALL YOUR constructive criticism! I spawned the idea for this story from the beginning of a one-shot I had wrote years before, about Kory being OOC and hating Vic, Gar, Dick and Rachel. Somehow, it changed into something more emotional 0_0 You really can't control the plots in stories sometimes. Or the characters.**

**Reviews will be WONDERFUL! **


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